Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Amen to that, Professor.

Exactly. It's over and done guys, now instead of wasting time linking to TPM, LGF, HuffPo and other assorted garbage sites looking for meaningless dirt on O'Donnell let's focus our attention on the real problem: the bearded Marxist.

P.S. For the record, I still think many of the views she had in her younger years were the valid and correct ones. It's also too bad that as we got older we get less and less open and honest about our lives in fear people will use it against us. But I digress...

Recall that in his book "The Choice," Bob Woodward revealed that during White House seances, the First Lady held conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi. If memory serves, the White House's defense was that this was an "intellectual" exercise. So, I guess that according to the left, this sort of conduct would not disqualify a candidate from being a Senator from NY, a Secretary of State, or a presidential candidate, but it disqualifies a candidate from being a Senator from Delaware? And to the Professor's point, maybe I just missed the the pundantry on the right's application of this particular litmus test to Mrs. Clinton during her campaigns. One may disagree with Hillary Clinton's politics, but few would use "RIP" to describe her political career because of her seances.

One time teen-aged Coven-Curious VS The Africanized Bearded Marxist

gee... I go with the teen-aged Coven-Curious

"Do these bloggers on the right think that someone whose job just got shipped to China because of our excessive regulation and taxes gives half a crap about whether Christine O'Donnell "dabled into witchcraft" when she was younger?"

Nope. But that's not how politics work, especially not leftist politics.

Look at, for instance, Stewart and Colbert's marches. Hell, look at Colbert's career. He doesn't make a single intelligent argument. All he does is parody the right. And he has a ton of viewers.

And you can't say *anything* to rebut it without being portrayed as a humorless stooge. It's the socially acceptable version of the howling protestors drowning out intelligent debate. And it's ruthlessly effective.

Basically, any conservative message has to get past the "static" that the left is broadcasting. Our message will always come with some static built in because we don't always agree, we have personal differences, etc.

So it's absolutely critical that we organize to keep our message on point and focused, otherwise we will be drowned out by liberal static.

O'Donnell is going to have to answer stupid questions about being Wiccan when she could be talking about issues. This will hurt her message, and that will hurt her as a candidate.

Incidentally, one way to put this to rest might be to do an interview with a Wiccan publication and talk about it. They're actually very nice people, and she could talk about how it's an interesting faith that appeals to young people, and how and why she moved on to Christianity.

If the GOP elites insist on turning this election into a knife fight against conservatives, I suggest we adopt the Butch Cassidy rule: "No rules!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWTNBRs7Ccs

"I was rootin' for ya Butch!" Love that scene. Great movie.

The one statement that you can always lobb over the rhetorical fence to those who don't seem to give the opposition any out is the following (I forget who originally posed it):

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you actually believe what you just said.

Never return negative for negative; always stick with the truth.

Amen. Excellent piece Prof. Jacobson!

Phil, I posted that quote yesterday (facetiously leaving out the author) and it was first said by William F. Buckley who never disappoints if you are looking for witty yet biting quotes.

Professor;

I think you over-stated you case in your last sentence, which conflicts with both the Lombardi Rule and what I know about you.

http://hindenblog1.blogspot.com/2010/09/crash-speaking-truth.html

[names of conservative blogs and pundits still dumping on O'Donnell deleted]

You can faux 'delete' there names, but many of us will still remember them when the time comes.

And it will.

Amen brother!

Louis Lombardi
State College, PA

Didn't liberals condemn this style of attack when they claimed that this is what Andrew Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod?

Sir,
Great post. I second your sentiments, but Karl Rove apparently does not. He was at it again today attacking O'Donnell. Thus my own entry into the fray at ResoluteCon.Com.

http://bit.ly/9sWKRb

V/R
John Guardiano

Now that's talking truth to power(line) good job prof.

This has been a real eye-opening experience for me. While I always expected to be disappointed by politicians and I always recognized those pundits/journalists/bloggers who I felt were more ruling class/elitist/RINO Republicans, I never expected the reaction I'm seeing days after a candidate has been duly elected.

I'm especially disappointed in some of the less mainstream blogs. In some instances, I feel like I've lost a good friend. Silly in a way but a valuable lesson nonetheless. At least I've freed up a lot more time for myself for there are many blogs I won't be frequenting any more.

Man, that post got me fired up!

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?!

Just returned late last night from the Reagan dinner in Iowa: much harrumphing from the establishment that Palin is refusing to stay within the guidelines determined by the self-professed guardians of the political process.

There is a lot to distill: I have an entire Mead composition book filled with notes, quotes and general observations, which I hope to collate into some type of digestible format within the next few days. O'Donnell is but one small piece of the puzzle that has the pundit class so distressed.

I get it. C O'D or the Marxist. The choice is obvious.

However, that doesn't mean when a candidate does something stupid that we take the Unicorns and Candy Mountain route. Because now it's turning into *any critique of a candidate means you're RINO scum*.

Seriously, if you run against what the Tea Party Express and Mark Levin have declared you're just a jackass.

That isn't grown up either. And it's the way "they" operate.

I don't understand the reactions of Rove or Krauthammer. I get the fact that they want a certain number of Republicans in order to obtain chairs, but when you have a communist like Castle as one of the number, will you actually have policy change? For that matter, 51 Senators will not make for policy change. If anyone can explian why they have such a marked reaction to this woman, please explain.

For my part I feel that anyone can be elected if they are presented right. From the little I have seen of O'Donnell she strikes me as a silly little girl. But that would not be why I would give her my vote, the reason would be that she clearly wants to stick to the conservative agenda (not like the bunch of Republican we elected in the 90's and later). I have a feeling that if people like her don't get in and if the agenda in DC does not change that the people will begin to forget the election process and take a more direct method of reducing the size and influence of the government.

David, it is really quite simple. They are bitter and angry because they weren't consulted, they weren't in the loop, and their chosen boy got beat.

They are just like the whiny kid who happened to own all the baseball gear; the one who would insist nobody was going to get to play unless he got to play first base.

Professor, apparently your impulse last night to go slow on the trigger dissipated quickly because here you are going full bore after the handful of conservative pundits and bloggers who are the least of O'Donnell's problems.

O'Donnell's central problem is that she faces a near-impossible uphill climb in a state so overwhelmingly Democratic that in the last mid-term Senate election in 2006, the Democrat won with 70% of the vote. With Maher's 22 shows thrown into the mix of all the other kookie things about O'Donnell, if she wasn't toast before, as I believe, she sure is now.The issue for you really ought to be whether you want to keep doubling down on a candidate who simply isn't worthy of your support for the next six weeks or spend that time and energy on the dozens of other candidates who can use the help and really are competitive.

Instead what I'm sensing here is the excitement of having a flame war among bloggers, which would not demonstrate seriousness about politics.

Taking on the main points of your post, here are a few thoights:

1) You say O'Donnell was being "sophomoric" in appearances on Maher's show in "the 1990s" when she was "younger," presumably a mere kid.

The sad truth is that O'Donnell was 30 years old when she appeared in the first of Maher's clips. When I was 30, my contemporaries had finished college, served in the armed forces, come home and completed graduate or professional schools, married and begun to have kids. You cannot use the excuse that she was young when we're talking about a 30 year old. When did she begin to mature? At 35? Last year at 40?

2) Will tens of thousands of Delaware voters "really care that when Christine O'Donnell was young and irresponsible, she was young and irresponsible?"

Well, first, she was 30 years old and older which will not strike voters s particularly young. Second, voters have shown countless times that they do care about candidates' pasts. If they didn't, there would never be any advantage for candidates who served in the armed forces or elsewhere in government or started a company or accomplished something else to mention any of that. This is really elementary, and you have to be oblivious to think otherwise. Third, Delaware voters were not all that inclined to vote for O'Donnell a week ago, and now they have even less reason to so so.

3) You suggest for the umpteenth time that O'Donnell is just getting the same shabby treatmeant as Sharron Angle. There may well be parallels in the way lefties are capitalizing on O'Donnell's foibles, but please, please give this silly argument a rest. Angle had her issues but nothing remotely as loony as O'Donnell's. And most of the issues used against Angle (on Social Security, etc.) were political in nature and were used by Reid to try to paint her as an "extremist." O'Donnell's issues boil down to her not being a serious person who can be taken seriously. Angle's challenges are far more manageable than O'Donnell's.

In any case, Nevada is a swing state, not a Democratic state and Harry Reid has sky-high negatives. It's not Delaware, and every time to compare the two as if they were the same, you show a lack of seriousness yourself.

4) Powerline is not "supplying Coons with more ammunition" by blogging about the obvious. O'Donnell is supplying Coons with all the ammunition. It's coming from her -- from her kookie activities and statements and associations for the bulk of her adult life.

Candidates come and go year after year and some will disappoint their supporters. The best way to deal with that is to channel your energy somewhere else to help a candidate less likely to disappoint.

Michael Gerson has some compelling thoughts about Karl Rove's honest critique of O'Donnell and how some O'Donnell backers have defaulted to a disturbing Leninist-like response:

"While Rove's critique was tough, the reaction in parts of the conservative blogosphere has been unhinged. Michelle Malkin wrote that it 'might as well have been Olbermann on MSNBC.' Mark Levin pronounced Rove at 'war against the Tea Party movement and conservatives.' 'In terms of the conservative movement,' wrote Dan Riehl, 'we should not simply ignore him, but proactively work to undermine Rove in whatever ways we can, given his obvious willingness to undermine us.'"

"This reaction is revealing -- and disturbing -- for a number of reasons.

"First, it shows how some conservatives view the business of political commentary. Rove obviously has strong views on O'Donnell, based on personal experience with the candidate. But deviations from the party line are not permitted. It is not enough to dispute Rove's critique; Rove himself must be punished. The message is clear: The facts do not matter. Politics is war carried on by other means. Anyone who doesn't consistently take one side is a traitor.

"This attitude can be found on right and left. But a serious commentator cannot think this way. He owes his readers or viewers his best judgment -- which means he cannot simply be a tool of someone else's ideological agenda. Some conservatives have adopted the Bolshevik approach to information and the media: Every personal feeling, every independent thought, every inconvenient fact, must be subordinated to the party line -- the Tea Party line."

Exactly. Here we have the likes of Levin and Riehl declaring war on Karl Rove who has spent months raising millions of dollars to poar into the campaigns of Angle, Toomey, Rubio and dozens of others running for House and Senate -- because Rove won't toe their line on O'Donnell.

Talk about arrogance and self-importance!

I saw this post as highly cohesive instead of divisive. Great job, Professor, and BTW, I knew you wouldn't take that twitter bait.

Someone's financial ox got gored. Nothing else explains the vitriol. Saving face in politics is directly proportional to income. Now, I wonder who (indeed, how many?) the Tea Party is offending by not following the script?

Bravo Professor, you are truly a shinning light, in that dark hole of leftism that is Ithaca, NY. P.S. I have first hand knowledge. I have relatives that live there and, I don't live that far away from there.

The "Buckley Rule" needs to be balanced by the "Buckley Principle" about preferring to be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston phone book rather than the faculty of Harvard.

That list of 2000 citizens is likely to include some people with some personal problems and some problematic views and statements in their past. Not very many will have a lot of the professional experiences we typically associate with Senatorial types. But the primary voters in Delaware, and a lot of people across the country, seem to be deciding that flawed citizen government may have a better chance of success than government of professional, polished politicians.

What's been most distasteful to me in the fallout from the dispute, beginning in the run-up to the vote and ever since, is the assumption of mala fides, the venting of personal vitriol, and the absolutism in the way conservatives have been expressing their points. It makes me far less optimistic about whether much will change after November's election. I still assume there will be a serious shift in Congress, but too much energy is going to internal ideological positioning for the conservative movement to address the Left. I hope that changes between now and then.

Guys. O'Donnell just answered your demands to explain these "Wiccan" videos. She was in high school at the time. High. School. She was a child. Quite an over-achiever wouldn't you say?

Kinda changes things a little? Feel silly?

She's Ned Flanders: thinks masturbation is wrong and Halloween is sinful.

John Burke, she was thirty years old while appearing on Maher. Exactly how old was she during the time she described? Or are you alleging she was describing contemporaneous events?

Unfortunately they won't stop. They will do everything in their power to kill her campaign to be right. This is so much more then a "blog" war this is war for the heart & soul of the Republican Party. This is a fight about WE The People and the Political Class.

"The sad truth is that O'Donnell was 30 years old when she appeared in the first of Maher's clips."

Talking about high school dalliances. The past. Past things she's done and grown beyond.

As to not being electable in Delaware, neither was Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Maybe she'll lose. I don't know. But this race certainly has shaken out some interesting nuts from the blogging trees.

Do you think the Dems will risk throwing away the Wiccan vote?

Winning isn't everything.

It's the only thing.

She's Ned Flanders: thinks masturbation is wrong and Halloween is sinful

Boo!! The godbotherers have NEVER delivered on the scary predictions by the libertines of either party. The Sharia crowd will, however.

You want the right to masturbate unjudged by a public official who could care less what goes on in your bathroom; and yet the Green Party Marxist types want to outlaw toilet paper. If you approve of that sort of meddlesome oversight, please wipe your political ass with your non-voting hand.

We can't forget that this is a three-way fight. All politicians/candidates AND their supporters fall into one of three camps - the Social Democrats, the Democrats-Lite, and the Constitutional Conservatives. Rove and Krauthammer seem to be loyal Democrats-Lite, and we need to defeat them, eventually.

The left is doing to O'Donnell exactly what they did to Sharron Angle

Yup. those darn Lefties are quoting people again.

I kind of like the "Victoria" rule: "We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat." ---Queen Victoria

Conservative Zombies
Zombie: in voodoo, a dead body supposedly brought back to life again without a soul


The next time I hear or read about the “Buckley rule” I’m going to spit. I’m always amazed at the number of conservatives like Bill Buckley or Barry Goldwater, now safely dead, who are being resurrected by the members of the MSM any time Conservatives do something of which Liberals disapprove.


Buckley, barely two years dead, was a favorite punching bag of the Left who loved to make fun of his use of big words, his defense of Joe McCarthy, and cite with glee his original objection to civil right laws which they attribute to racism. But suddenly, the “Buckley rule” is supposed to be the guiding light of Conservatives. The Buckley rule is (in the words of Charles Krauthammer):
support the most conservative candidate who is electable.
That means that Conservatives are supposed to take one for the team and should have nominated Mike Castle – the RINO establishment candidate who was supposed to be a shoo-in. A funny thing happened to the shoo-in, he could not get the Republican Senatorial nomination in Delaware.


In case anyone needs reminding, Buckley should be celebrated for not following the Buckley rule. He ran for Mayor of New York to take votes away from Republican John Lindsay, supported Democrat Joe Lieberman when he ran against Republican Lowell Weicker and led a successful campaign to unseat Republican Charles Goodell in favor of brother Jim Buckley running on the Conservative party ticket. In the last two instances, the insurgent won. There are no final electoral decisions until the votes are counted.


I have a great deal of respect for Krauthammer but he’s no movement Conservative. He’s a thoughtful pragmatist who’s very worried about the ability of a radical like Barack Obama to change America fundamentally from a free-enterprise republic to and all-encompassing corporatist state with leaders who don’t like America. In First Lady Michelle Obama’s immortal words, she has never been proud of America in her adult life until now.


Of course for Democrats in and out of the media the references to the Buckley Rule are self-serving, which is not surprising. In a time of particular political turmoil where all the energy seems to be on the Right, the Left is concerned that the tsunami has so far hit only Liberal Republicans. The real concern is how badly the Left will be hurt in November. It is useful for Democrats to be able to co-opt members of the Republican Party whose only quibble with the Democrats’ agenda is the price tag, not the issues themselves.


Make no mistake, the Tea Party movement, despite the rhetoric about deficits, is fundamentally about the role of government. If the government can be transformed from the all-encompassing omnipresent Big Brother to a government of limited powers envisioned by the founders, the deficits will recede.


The Buckley rule is a useful rule of thumb for ordinary times. But just as the constitution is not a suicide pact, the Buckley rule should not bind us in extraordinary times; just as it did not bind William F. Buckley, Jr. All we have to do is help O’Donnell win. The process is already started; she’s raised nearly $2 million via small contributions from all around the country in less than a week. Go HERE to contribute. And while giving, let’s help Sean Bielat retire Barney Frank.

Wow. Beware the fury of a patient man.

The most amazing thing to me about this particular election?
She's running for the seat Joe Biden held for years.
Joe Freakin' Biden!!
Wiccan? Coven? Who cares?
Obviously, anyone with the intelligence of a Chimpanzee can be successful in that position.

Joan of Argghh!: (love that name) Just wanted to let you know that I clicked on your link to pay a visit to your blog. Fantastic! Lots of links to other great blogs too, blogs I never heard of before.

That's why I stopped blogging. I can't compete against so many great blogs. I'd have to kill somebody to draw traffic.

Thanks, Phil. How very kind of you to say so!

Right now the most electable conservative in DE is O'donnel. Where is Krauthammer's support?

What part am I not understanding?

Obama is still running against Bush. Or Palin.
(Palin is probably a valid concern now, come to think of it.)

Thomas D wrote (and others made a similar point): "John Burke, she was thirty years old while appearing on Maher. Exactly how old was she during the time she described? Or are you alleging she was describing contemporaneous events?"

Exactly. She was 30 years old when she appeared on Maher's wretched show and laughed it up about dabbling into witchcraft in high school -- on a show where the right was able to put in invited appearances only to be lampooned or eviscerated by Maher and the rest of his guests, most of whom were D list liberal whackos.

Yet, O'Donnell appeared on his show 22 times! Why? What serious 30-year-old political conservative would agree to play the conservative foil to Maher's sick putdowns again and again? Someone who saw a way to promote herself as some sort of minor media "celebrity" or else a seriously non-serious person dabbling in politics.

That's my indictment against Christine O'Donnell. She's a self-promoting phony who was eager to say or do anything, however loony, to get on TV...or snag a nomination.

When you put such a person forward for high elective office, you cannot be surprised or offended, much less angered, by the fact that a lot of people -- most importantly the voters -- are going to say to themselves, WTF!

How sad that on the subject of this candidate, Messers Rove, Krauthammer et.al. have thrown in with the elitist snobs. Whatever happened to respect for the decision of the voters fairly and democratically expressed at the polls? THEY are the party.

What a scandal that Rove, Krauthammer, et.al., have joined the ranks of the snobocracy in assailing Christine O'Donnell. Whatever happened to the reverent respect these pundits used to show for the decision of the party rank and file, fairly and democratically expressed at the polls?

Ridicule is the answer.

Oh. Yeah. Send O'Donnell money.

I still assume there will be a serious shift in Congress, but too much energy is going to internal ideological positioning for the conservative movement to address the Left.

The question is: Is the Tea Party strong enough to fight a two front war?

My answer is yes.

And I will also predict that O'Donnell will be the next Senator from DE.

Besides any socon who goes to meet with Libertarians to discuss her position on the Drug War has a LOT going for them in my book.

Any friend (or former friend) of Aleister Crowley is a friend of mine.

Let's not wonder any longer at the apparent turncoat behavior here.

When the prols were behaving themselves, the "will of the people" was important.

Now that Winston (a friend named "Winston died last week) has gone and thought for himself, it is a different matter completely.

The NYT ponders whether to suck the scum at the top of the Democrat Slough of Despond or feed off the bottom of that Swamp! Commissars Pelosi/Plouffe/Axelrod & other Dem Goebbels-wannabes are now debating how to frame their latest big smear and big lie. And Rove & Krauthammer can't keep their control-freak mouths shut about Delaware because Rove thinks he engineered a GWB victory in 2000. He also engineered the most spendthrift Administration ever until 2008. We need a GOP without a Rove or a Grover Nordquist trying to be Wizard of Oz to our Dorothy. Or a Tea Party by itself that can restore constitutional government.

So she was on the Maher show 22 times. Maybe she was trying to convert Maher, or talk over to him the audience. Maybe she was ambitious and wanted to get into politics but was stupidly born without financial resources or a Harvard degree.

So what so what so WHAT? She is likeable, engaging, and will vote the right way reliably, becuz she does savvy the borg, and is clearly free to savage it.

We don't matter anyway --the voters of Delaware matter. We could all just shut up and do what Simon says, and let the Delawarians do as they shall anyway.

Forget Lombardi Rules, I want to see the Bangkok Rules used...

"Nobody draws until this can hits the ground..."

"Yet, O'Donnell appeared on his show 22 times! Why? What serious 30-year-old political conservative would agree to play the conservative foil to Maher's sick putdowns again and again? Someone who saw a way to promote herself as some sort of minor media "celebrity" or else a seriously non-serious person dabbling in politics."

Ah, so according to you, Conservatives should only appear in front of friendly audiences? Or, at least, only on programs you approve of?
Which brings us back to the Buckley quote on your intelligence. Are you sure you're not a Democrat, because you sound like one?

Well said, Tom Perkins. I was going to respond earlier; I'm glad I waited. The worst part of JB and his ilk's comments is that the left can use them as cover: hey! don't listen to me, I'm a lefty, read/hear what conservatives say about her.

Prof Jacobson's points still stand unscathed.

People on here are very passionate. Good for you all. I hope the voters in Delaware have the same passion. I'm just afraid of one thing. If O'Donnell doesn't win, I hope I don't hear blame placed on a couple of "establishment hacks and bloggers." If a couple of mainstreem people can complain and comment and bring her down then maybe she just wasn't a good enough candidate. If you are going to champion her victory, as you should, you can't decry her defeat as one brought on by the people in your party that you don't agree with because it's this type of reasoning that doesn't get us anywhere.

I believe the people you are now angry with will applaud an O'Donnell win, I hope you will consider their reasoning in backing the moderate if we get another Marxist in the Senate.

John Burke, and yet here you are carrying Maher's water.

You must be the transparency Obama promised us.

Sheesh. For people who claim to hate the Establishment, a lot of you are sure acting like it now. "The primary is over! It's us vs. them! Either support the candidate or shut up! Don't provide the other side with ammo! Message discipline! Message discipline! Stray and you're no longer our friend!"

Folks, you hated this stuff when it was tried on you. Funny what a little taste of power will do to you, isn't it?

Excellent post, Professor. As usual, you are right on the money.

In my book, Krauthammer gets policy right about 90% of the time, if not more, but he's horribly bad at the politics. He initially pissed all over Palin; he said Joe Miller wouldn't win in Alaska; he initially was not behind Scott Brown; and now he's trashing O'Donnell. I wish he'd focus exclusively on policy and stay silent about the politics.

Look, nobody is going to mistake Christine O'Donnell for Thomas Jefferson. But she doesn't have to be Thomas Jefferson when she will only be 1 of 100 votes.

It's pretty simple. Coons will rubber stamp everything Obama wants. O'Donnell will stand against it. The choice couln't be more stark.

If you want bigger government; more debt; unsustainable deficits; structurally high unemployment; more government intervention in the economy stifling dynamism and innovation; less liberty; higher electricity rates after cap and tax is passed; etc. Then vote Coons. If you want to stop all that nonsense, then vote O'Donnell.

It's that simple. Everything else is a distraction.

It's terribly destructive for the conservative snobs and elites to tear down our candidate just so they can satisfy their own inflated egos.

maggot, Sept 20, 12:31 pm:

I was with you all the way --and still am --but, would you review your comment with the last nine words deleted? I think leaving out the imputation of motive would really power up your theme. IMHO, of course --

Nice article ... the power of truth